NOTE: Szymon KATASZEK (né Boruch Szymon Kataszek) composer, pianist, bandleader, one of pioneers of Polish jazz. Born in Warsaw 1898; executed by the nazis in Warsaw, 1943. He received his musical education in the Music Institute in Warsaw (the class of piano) and in St. Cecilia Academy in Rome. Having returned to Poland before completing his studies, he got his first job as an organist in St.Trinity Church in Warsaw, working also in the nightclubs as a pianist. He also played for some time in the Military Band of the Garrison of Warsaw. In 1920 he enlisted as a soldier to the Polish Army to fight in the Polish-Bolshevic War. In 1921 he went to Gdańsk and Berlin, to play in dance orchestras. From the end of 1922, back in Warsaw, he and his friend Zygmunt Karasiński - who also had some experience having played with the German dance bands - established a jazz quintett, that appeared on the stage of a newly opened & fashionable restaurant „Oaza". Their performances became a sensation. In 1924 the Krasiński & Kataszek Band recorded its first sides for „Syrena" and until 1928 they toured many times around Poland, performing at the most elegant hotels, restaurants and holiday spas. In his memoirs, the fiddler Aleksander Halicki - one of musicians who played in Krasiński & Kataszek Band, wrote, they were the first professional Polish dance orchestra that applied the instrumental improvisation.

Kataszek's activity was not merely bandleading: he also composed dozens of first Polish foxtrotts, black-bottoms, shimmies, charlestons. His hits (called in pre-war Poland „schlagers") were presented on the stages of little theatres of Warsaw: „Qui Pro Quo", „Perskie Oko", „Rex", and sung by the whole of Poland: „A ile mi dasz?" (How Much Shall I Get From You?), „To Zula (W futerko się otula)" (Its Zula, Who Wraps Herself In The Fur - dedicated to the charleston-dance pionieer and a „Qui Pro Quo" singer, Zula Pogorzelska), „Abram, ja ci zagram!" (Ill Play It For You, Abram!) or a tango „Czemuś o mnie zapomniał?" (Wy Have You Forgotten Me?) rewarded the Grand Prix of 1932 Tango Competition, organized by the theatre „Morskie Oko" together with Syrena-Electro Co. In 1933 he and Krasiński wrote music for the film comedy „Każdemu wolno kochać" with two schlagers: the rumba „Chcesz to mnie bierz" (Take Me, If You Feel Like It) and the homonymous tango „Każdemu wolno kochać" (Everybody Has A Right To Love). A nice anecdote is linked with this song: when in 1935 Polish Parliament confirmed the new constitution for the Polish Republic with full rights granted to the homosexuals, from the age of 15 (it was one of few such tolerant law regulations in the world) tango „Każdemu wolno kochać" became an unofficial anthem of the gay circles in Poland and in form of a comment to the new constistution - performed by the male vocal/dance duett - it was sung in the cabarets.

Taking profit from his enormous popularity, Kataszek also maintained a social activity. He was a chairman of the Society For Workless Musicians, that forced a rule obliging all artistic unions in Poland of writing 20% off their radio performance incomes for the benefit of the jobless musicians. In 1938 he arranged the enormous Festival Of Dance with 10 best dance orchestras of Poland, performing for the public in Karowa Street in Warsaw. The whole income was conveyed to the National Fund Of The Aircraft Building.

Alas, a year later, no aircratf was able to rescue Poland from the murderous attack on her, from the both sides: nazi Germany from the west, and 2 weeks later, the Soviet Union from the East. As most of the artists, Kataszek left Warsaw for Lwow, and he got under the Soviet occupation. In the very beginning he was allowed to perform for the Soviet dignitaries in the night restaurant „Imperial". But when in June 1941 the Soviet-German war blew out, he, instead of fleeing farther eastwards, returned to Warsaw. Many Polish patriotic Jews, who hated communists the same much, as Poles, did so, unaware of horrors carried on in the nazi-occupied Poland. That's how he got to the Warsaw Ghetto. In first few months he managed to carry on with bandleading: he led the Ghetto Jewish Police Orchestra, but when the first deportations to Treblinka and Bełżec started, he managed to slide out to the „aryan" side and he went to Lwow. There - as the unverified sources say - he returned to his „Imperial", where he led the band again. But, recognised by one of the guests, who was the SS officer from Warsaw - he was arrested and sent to the prison of Pawiak in the Warsaw Ghetto. And there - its a version confirmed by the historians - he was shot with a group of prisoners, on 22 May, 1943.